Lessons Learned

We keep runnin’, runnin’, and runnin’, runnin’. We fell in love with Canada after witnessing the majesty of Niagara and decided to visit again in short order. Not this time! The trip to Banff has been on Lily’s bucket list since she first heard of the place in a preserve in South Africa (it’s a […]

By definition, habits are hard to give up. Apparently, traveling has become our habit. Since being home, we have been tirelessly working on getting our acts together – updating our resumes, applying for jobs, reuniting with friends and family, establishing healthy habits. Karol has also been working towards another certification and I’ve started writing. Our […]

The following is Part II (of II) of the super long post covering our secret southern road trip. A short ride from Jackson, New Orleans was our next destination. Louisiana New Orleans was one of the few stops on our trip where expectations were set. Fueled by friends’ social media accounts, we envisioned a mecca […]

Happy International Women’s Day! Rather, one day belated. You’ll have to forgive us because (1) this post is a long one, and (2) we’ve been up to no good. For the month of February through today, while our families were under the impression that we were volunteering for a few extra weeks in Brazil and […]

Join us on a detour from the regularly scheduled programming. While a big portion of our trip was devoted to exploring and reveling in all of the experiences possible, it was time to plant ourselves down and give back. Researching opportunities, we fell in love with the prospect of volunteering at Iracambi. Iracambi is a […]

First post of 2019. We’re a bit delayed, primarily due to lack of service – we apologize if you have been worried sick about us. As per family tradition, we would like to take this opportunity to reflect on the past year, while bidding farewell to the old and welcoming in the new. 2018 has […]

Out of the jungle and into the desert. We wrapped up our adventure in Jalapão and hopped on a flight to São Luis, the nearest major city to Lençóis Maranhenses National Park (another obscure nature destination Karol found). São Luis itself is an attractive destination due to its history and designation as a UNESCO world […]

Having spent two weeks in the big cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, you would think we had acquired a decent understanding of Brazil and its culture. During our excursion in Jalapão, we quickly realized how limited our understanding actually was as we learned a variety of key words and phrases in Portuguese, […]

Nothing of interest happened in Rio. End of post. ………………………………………………………..………… Just kidding. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Rio is heaven on Earth; after having spent eight days there, we’re already looking forward to coming back for our second leg in a few weeks. The weather was perfect the entire time (hot, but still […]

A mistake we have made more than once on this trip is to arrive to a new place with preconceived notions. Our first destination in Brazil was São Paulo. We arrived at 3:40am on a red-eye, so perhaps the unwavering caution and vigilance that came with us was not unreasonable. The rest of our stay […]